Fallen from Grace
by GoldenHydrangea
Summary: And now the final battle had arrived, and Cedric was fighting, so far neither having killed or been killed, until this moment, when Neville Longbottom stands before him. And he is no longer that chubby cheeked outcast with no self confidence that could never find his toad- no longer a failure- but a hero. Spoilers for Cursed Child abound, read with caution


"Why are you doing this?"

Sometimes Cedric wondered that himself. He didn't hate muggle borns, or blood traitors, at least, not in particular. He was doing this for himself, plain and simple. Once, he would have been disgusted by himself.

He was disgusted by himself.

When someone, he suspected it was Potter, but to this day he didn't know, had caused his bubble head to inflate, his pride had been wounded, but that alone hadn't been enough to drive him to this. He couldn't even be angry with Potter, he _had_ rescued Cho.

"What was that?" Roger had asked, as he headed into their bedroom.

"Someone cheated. Hexed me." He said crossly. As he said it, he felt foolish. Accusations of cheating were the excuse of a sore loser. But he was pretty sure someone _had_ cheated.

"This was our chance!" Roger snapped, and he didn't say anything more, because Cedric already knew. This was hufflepuff's chance to prove that they weren't a house of pushovers. And he Cedric, had ruined it.

"I can still win-"

"You've done two out of three tasks and have zero points!"

"Someone disarmed me when I was fighting the dragon-"

"Oh, you always have an excuse don't you?"

"Even you don't believe me, then?"

Roger apologized the next day, of course, but something was ruined between them. Every time the two spoke, they carefully thought about what to say, they consciously chose to smile rather than doing so naturally. The same was true with his relationship with Cho. There was no big blow up, but she started finding excuses to not go on dates, when and often, he saw her glancing in the direction of the boy who lived, and the probable winner of the Triwizard Tournament. Perhaps he was just being paranoid. He was the one who ended the relationship.

The other students were talking about him behind his back, he knew. Occasionally, one of them would say something nasty to his face. He tried to ignore them. He didn't need popularity, he just wanted someone who he felt was on his side.

Worst of all was his father. When he stopped writing letters to his son, Cedric had begun to worry. But he had held out hope that his father would be as supportive as ever until only his mother showed up to support him for the third task. She told him that his father was simply busy. He didn't believe her.

At first, he had been alarmed when Potter returned, clutching the trophy, shouting that You-Know-Who was back, but as the months passed, nothing happened, and his panic began to fade. He had other problems to worry about, like how when he returned home all that his father could offer him was a "Well, you did your best" before disappearing off to do something else. No one, it seemed, was willing to call him a loser, but he could see it in the faces of everyone around him. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

And then there was the arrival of the worst DADA professor yet for his seventh year at Hogwarts, Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge. The only good thing about her was that she was so universally hated that the other students almost forgot the fiasco that was the Triwizard Tournament was almost forgotten- almost. It still seemed as if people were avoiding him though. When Granger came to him and told him that she had an idea involving having Potter teach Defence against the Dark Arts, he refused. He had told himself he wasn't mad at Potter, but he couldn't bear the idea of a fifth year who had stolen the Triwizard tournament victory teachin him.

He got a 0 on his Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWTs.

It was the first 0 he had ever gotten, at least on anything important. He tried to explain to his father that he had had a teacher that refused to let them actually use how to learn magic, not to mention seven years of seven different teachers of varying degrees of competence.

"Oh, you always have an excuse don't you?" His father railed.

At the end of the year, everyone knew that You-Know-Who had returned, and people began to disappear. But none of them were close to him, and none of them affected him in any real way. What did affect him was his inability to get a job, due to a combination of the distrustful atmosphere, his 0 in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and the fact that people _still_ , it seemed, had not forgotten his humiliation.

Or maybe he was just being paranoid.

He became so desperate that he considered getting a job in the muggle world, where no one knew his name. The problem with that was, he hadn't taken muggle studies, or any of the classes that muggles needed. His father reluctantly allowed him to keep living with him. He felt like even more of a failure.

He started visiting Knockturn Alley. It was stupid and reckless, the fear of Voldemort had caused it to come under a cloud of suspicion. Once, when he was in Borgin and Burkes, he accidently ran into a hooded figure.

"Sorry." He muttered.

"Cedric Diggory?" It was a woman's voice. She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a dark mark.

Cedric should have been afraid, but all he felt was a dim sense of curiosity. "That's me."

"I have heard of your talents." She spoke softly. "The light does not value them enough."

"Yes."

" _We_ would value them."

He hesitated. "No." He said finally. He was still too proud to join the Death Eaters. He wondered if she would kill him, but perhaps she didn't think she could escape if she did, for she simply left Borgin and Burkes.

He watched her go, thinking he should probably tell someone.

Cedric continued to try to find a job, and continued to fail. He was already beginning to despair when he heard news that Dumbledore was dead.

When he asked his father if he could go to his funeral, Amos Diggory finally exploded. Perhaps he was simply angry that his beloved headmaster was dead, and his son was simply the nearest target.

He couldn't come. He was a disgrace. He was a failure.

When his father left, he left as well. He walked a long way before deciding where he was going.

 _I have heard of your talents. The light does not value them enough._ We _would value them._

He chose Malfoy Manor because Lucius Malfoy was a high profile death eater, and surely his wife still had a connection to them. He didn't know that You-Know-Who was actually there. He should have been afraid of him, but he felt as if he had nothing left to lose.

At first, he only did odd jobs. As the new guy, he had been low on the hierarchy of death eaters. But there was a reason he was chosen as a champion, he was intelligent and talented, but more importantly he was hardworking and determined. He was welcomed into The Dark Lord's inner circle before the year was out.

He observed what was happening around him. He guessed that the Dark Lord had created a horcrux. He should have been horrified.

He guessed that the Dark Lord was trying to track down the elder wand. He remembered legends that one could only gain control over the elder wand by killing the previous master, and that Dumbledore had owned it last. He didn't know why he warned Snape that he may be the Dark Lord's next target. Perhaps he saw something in himself in the bitter, vindictive man. Perhaps there was some of the selfless that had characterized his younger days left in him. Snape didn't respond to this, he simply regarded him with those black eyes that seemed capable of reading his mind.

And now the final battle had arrived, and Cedric was fighting, so far neither having killed or been killed, until this moment, when Neville Longbottom stands before him. And he is no longer that chubby cheeked outcast with no self confidence that could never find his toad- no longer a failure- but a hero. The same age that Cedric was during that one, golden moment when he had been named Hogwarts Champion, before everything had gone downhill.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Why shouldn't I?" He yelled. "What do I owe to any of you? You treated me like dirt just because your friend Potter _cheated-_ "

"Oh, you always have an excuse don't you?"

In that moment, he was filled with rage for the first time in years, replacing that empty, hollow sense of shame that had been with him for so long. Rage that Neville Longbottom had echoed the words of his estranged father, of his former friend. The words that said that there was no excuse, that his loneliness, his inability to find work, his turn to the dark arts, were all his fault. And maybe they were. And maybe that wasn't the reason why he was angry. Maybe he was angry because Neville had risen just as he had fallen from grace.

Either way, in that rage, he finally found it in him to cross the last threshold. To rip his very soul in two.

"Avada Kedavra!"

He watched as Longbottom fell to the ground. He was shaking, but even though he tried, he couldn't find it in himself to regret what he had done.

The darkness was complete.


End file.
